Don't Cry. Organize.

When I finally crawled into bed last night at 4 a.m., I had two words for my husband: "dead inside."

I'm willing to guess that even among women who were feeling less despair, among those who did cast a ballot for Trump, the majority do not support every facet of the Republican party platform or every one of Trump's campaign promises. Perhaps you opposed America's foreign policy under Obama, but do not want to see Roe v. Wade overturned. Or, perhaps you think we need tax cuts—and gun control.

The point is, with Donald Trump's electoral college win over Hillary, Republicans' triumphs in the House and Senate, and the potential for a historically conservative Supreme Court, we will have significantly fewer governmental checks and balances on the Republican agenda. This is their blank check. If we want to stop any aspect of their program, we're going to have to organize.

Perhaps it was useful that Hillary Clinton didn't speak to her supporters last night. It gave us a chance, as reality sunk in, to begin to feel our way towards a path without her. For the past 25 years, Hillary has become inextricably linked with feminism. But Hillary will not run again. A movement that has been focused on Hillary as the brightest hope for the feminist apotheosis of a first female president must now regroup and refocus.

As Hillary said when she spoke this morning, "Our campaign was never about one person, or even one election. It was about the country we love and building an America that is hopeful, inclusive, and big-hearted." This is a movement about all of us. And when I say all of us, I don't mean just women, but people of color, religious minorities, the LGBT community, immigrants and refugees, and all men who don't want to live under the Trumpian brand of masculinity, where women are ornaments to be grabbed and empathy is branded weakness. We as a nation are only as equal or free as our least equal or free citizens.

Last night, as the news at the Javits went from bad to worse, I found Stephanie Schriock, president of Emily's List. The votes were not fully counted, but you could see her wheels were already turning, thinking about how she would react and recover. "Women are going to grieve, but after we grieve," she said, "we need to come together. In many ways, I think we're looking at the dawn of a new chapter in the fight for women's rights. Maybe we need a new ERA. We're going to have to take stock and think, where are we? What does this mean for our girls?"

Schriock was bowing her head over her phone next to Ilyse Hogue, president of NARAL Pro-Choice America, who was doing the same, typing madly. Hogue lamented that she hadn't even read the email to supporters that her team had prepared before election day for the possibility of a Trump win. It had seemed so unthinkable. She was particularly concerned about the possible Supreme Court implications for reproductive choice. "This is going to require us to think in different ways. We need to think about Poland," she said, referring to Poland's recent attempt to enact a bill making virtually all abortion illegal. It was followed by mass demonstrations by women and, ultimately, lawmakers backed down. "We no longer get to live under the illusion that we're going to elect people who reflect our best interest," she said. "We're going to have to take control of our own destiny and take care of each other in ways we haven't had to do for a long time. But we've done it before and we'll do it again."

As I tried to sleep last night, I found myself thinking about the centuries in which women and African-Americans went without a vote in this country. And I thought about how, even after those milestones were achieved, many more fights still lay ahead in order to break down the racial and gender barriers to full civic and economic participation. I recently read John Lewis's beautiful and harrowing graphic novel trilogy,March, about his role in the civil rights movement. It's easy to forget how ugly fights can get before you make progress, that people have lost their lives in the name of our rights. But we do make progress.

I was also reminded of an interview I had with Hillary when she was Secretary of State, back in 2012. We were talking about her efforts at the State Department to promote women's and girls' rights around the world. She told me then that the world didn't change overnight. "I don't take issue with how difficult this is but I do reject the idea that it's a never. Because I don't believe that in the course of human history, the nevers have been proven right," she said. "It is true that all of these campaigns to expand the circle of human opportunity and human rights are long term struggles, but that isn't the same as never." She talked about the suffragettes. "When you think about … Seneca Falls, in terms of political action, it seems like a long time, but it's a short time in human evolution. I think a lot of people are still struggling with, 'what difference would it make if women were empowered in a country? Really, does that make a difference?' They don't see it as I do, which is the unfinished business of the 21st century. If you think of slavery as being the unfinished business of the 19th century and totalitarianism as being such an affront to human dignity in the 20th century, then the next frontier is the full potential for women."

So I'm trying to think of Hillary Clinton's defeat last night as just one more step in the long road towards freedom and equality in this country. It makes me feel, at least, a little less dead inside.

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